Jack Saturday

Monday, December 29, 2014

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1238-1240

Reports this year have shown the highest numbers ever of child poverty in B.C. Most of the children affected live in families led by low-income single mothers.
Other studies have found that hundreds of Victoria families are living below the poverty line and are at risk of homelessness.
One report found that on one night in February, 70 families sought emergency shelter in Victoria. Of the 78 people turned away from shelters that night, 12 were children.Series: The growing problem of hidden poverty in Greater VictoriaSarah Petrescu / Times Colonist December 26, 2014[emphasis JS]

At The Washington Post, Christopher Ingraham reports on the results of the study, which was published in the journal Sleep: “Compared to normal sleepers, so-called ‘short sleepers’ — those who are getting six hours or less on weeknights — worked 1.5 more hours on weekdays and nearly two hours more on weekends and holidays.” And, he notes, lack of sleep is linked to car accidents and a number of health problems. “To the extent that we’re trading sleep for work,” he writes, “our jobs are literally killing us."

Monday, December 22, 2014

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1234-1237

Can Amelia be sexually harassed? I bet the egg heads have forgotten about this vital characteristic.WrecksComment section

There is an approximately 50% deflation rate for all information technology. That is why mobile phones were only affordable by the wealthy 15 years ago and now are dramatically better yet very inexpensive, so much so that there are approximately six billion cell phones in the world and about a billion smart phones.
Technology starts out affordable only by the rich at a point where it does not work very well. By the time a technology is perfected it is almost free. Even physical devices will become almost free with the advent of 3D printing.Ray Kurzweil[emphasis JS]

Let us ask: what are the needs of each one of us? Sufficient food and clothing, adequate housing - a certain minimum of these necessities should be the inalienable right of every member of the community. Until it can provide these minimum necessities, a society must be branded as inhuman and inefficient.Herbert ReadTo Hell With Culture

Monday, December 15, 2014

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1231-1233

Work’s assumed virtue has always been about more than its
utility or market value. George Lakoff, the cognitive linguist, provided a clue
in the frame of work as obedience. The first virtue we learn as children is
obeying our parents, particularly in performing tasks we don’t enjoy. Later, as
adults, we’re paid to obey our employers — it’s called work. Work and virtue
are thus connected in our neurology in terms of obedience to authority. That’s
not the only cognitive frame we have for the virtue of work, but it’s the one
that is constantly reinforced by what Lakoff calls the “strict father”
conservative moral system.

Two Pratt & Whitney plants that build jet engines will
receive $300 million in tax incentives and subsidies from the federal
government.

Industry Minister James Moore announced the funding at the
company's facilities in Mississauga, just west of Toronto. At the same time,
Infrastructure Minister Denis Lebel made a similar announcement at the
Longueuil, Que., facility on the other side of the river from Montreal.

...

a Fraser Institute study last year found that Pratt &
Whitney had received more than $3.3 billion in Canadian government subsidies
in inflation-adjusted terms over five decades, more than any other company.

Monday, December 08, 2014

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1228-1230

An Assortment of Data Shows a Resurgent U.S. Economy, but Pay Continues to Lag By REUTERS
Reports on employment, the services industry and productivity as well as the Fed’s Beige Book snapshot of the economy all showed vitality. The momentum, however, did not carry over into wages.NYT HeadlineDecember 3, 2014[emphasis JS]

Unsteady Incomes Keep Millions Behind on Bills By PATRICIA COHEN
The Federal Reserve says that more than 30 percent of Americans report irregular incomes that sabotage efforts to budget and save. Unreliable work hours are cited most often.NYT headlineDEC. 4, 2014

Chronic Diseases Are Killing More in Poorer Countries By SABRINA TAVERNISE
Deaths from chronic diseases such as cancer and heart disease have risen by more than 50 percent in low- and middle-income countries over the past two decades, according to a report.NYT headlineDEC. 4, 2014

Monday, December 01, 2014

Anti Wage-Slavery Pro-Freedom Quotations Of The Week 1225-1227

While the G20 summit in Australia made headlines over global warming, economic growth and terrorism, much less attention was paid to the giant spectre of global corruption.

That is too bad as this is a problem that is arguably more dangerous to humanity than even terrorism because it siphons off an estimated $1 trillion from developing countries annually through bribery, money laundering, tax evasion, extortion and other financial crimes.

Recent World Bank estimates suggest that much of the world's direct aid to the poorest countries ends up stolen, perhaps as much as $40 billion in recent years.

And it has been estimated that up to 3.6 million of the world's poorest die annually from inadequate health care and living conditions directly because corruption has leached away development aid of all kinds.Global corruption a bigger scourge than terrorismCBCnews[emphasis JS]

The crop itself was in every way exceptional. It was intricately and endlessly demanding in the ways it was cultivated, handled, and prepared for market. In the time before tractors and chemicals, the tobacco crop was made by the work of mules and men, and, when needed, women, the man-hours far exceeding the mule-hours. All crops, then, of course, were dependent on such work, but tobacco was unique in the intensity, skill and length of the work it required. Its production then, as Andy Catlett now thinks, looking back, involved higher standards and greater passion for excellence than any other practice of agriculture, excepting only that of the better livestock breeders.Nothing living lives aloneWendell Berryfrom the Threepenny ReviewPushcart Prize XXXVIIBest Of The Small Presses[emphasis JS]

There is precious little hope to be got out of whatever keeps us industrious, but there is a chance for us whenever we cease work and become stargazers.

About

About Me

Come by to Jack Saturday once a week for some bracing anti-wage-slavery quotations, it'll be nice to have you over to the place. I'll be including some of the wake of my personal journey through freedom from the job in this third emancipatory phase of history, the phase of liberation of wage-slaves through a Guaranteed Livable Income.
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Come to Extraordinary Discourse for my podcast, wider ranging. It would be a joy to spend an hour a week with you.